Sunday, June 22, 2014

No School in America is Immune from
School Violence-- Making Schools Safer during the Summer,
so They are Safe in the Fall

Dear Colleagues,

Today's Focus:

Another Shooting Victim, and the 2013 National
School Crime and Safety Report Just Released

It's been an
interesting, but tragic, two weeks.

Just as I finished
working with eight school districts around the country on their School Climate
Transformation grants, and turned my attention to a new federal grant to
implement Positive Behavioral Support Systems in 80 schools around the country,
I received two pieces of news.

The first piece of
news was of yet another end-of-the-year (not that they don't occur almost
year-round now) school shooting (and student death) just outside of Portland,
OR- - in the state's second high school. According to CNN, since the December,
2012 Sandy Hook massacre, there have been 74 school shootings.

The second piece of
news involved the release, by the U.S. Departments of Education and Justice, of
the Indicators of School Crime and Safety: 2013 report. This report noted that-
- while large-scale and dramatic acts of school violence have increased the
public's concern about safety concerns in U.S. schools- - violent deaths at
school remain statistically rare.

I guess you will have
to explain that to the victims (fatally, physically, and emotionally) of the 74
school shootings that have occurred in the past 18 months.

* In 2012, students ages 12-18 were victims of about 1,364,900
nonfatal victimizations at school, including 615,600 thefts and 749,200 violent
victimizations.

* The rates of
non-fatal victimization at school for students 12-18 increased from 35
victimizations per 1,000 students in 2010 to 52 victimizations per 1,000
students in 2012.

* In 2011-12, about 38 percent of teachers agreed or strongly
agreed that student misbehavior interfered with their teaching, and 35 percent
reported that student tardiness and class cutting interfered with their
teaching.

* In
2011, about 28 percent of 12- to 18-year-old students reported having been
bullied at school during the school year and 9 percent reported having been
cyber-bullied.

* During the 2011-12
school year, 88 percent of public schools reported that they controlled access
to school buildings by locking or monitoring doors during school hours, and 64
percent reported that they used security cameras to monitor the school.

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

While,
statistically, some of these numbers reflect decreases in some of these
incidents over time, we all know that these numbers fluctuate, and
that-regardless of any decreases-these numbers reflect an ongoing problem in
our schools.

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

There are No Easy Answers, but There are
Resources Available

One of the free
resources on our website is:

The School
Safety Audit and Emergency/Crisis Prevention Audit Protocols

This brief document emphasizes the
importance of conducting periodic "School Safety Audits" of the
classrooms and common areas of a school (e.g., hallways, bathrooms,
playgrounds), and provides an outline of what specifically needs to be
analyzed. The document also provides an "Emergency Operations
Handbook" outline, and notes that schools need to plan for three types of
crises: Crises with Advanced Notice, with Minimal Notice, and with
No Notice.

With the students now
gone for summer break, this is a perfect time to do a school safety audit, and
review your emergency plan and operations handbook. Hopefully, the time that
you invest now will pay dividends in a safer school and student body for the
coming school year.

For almost 30 years
and across the country, we have been helping schools and districts with
approaches that-- when implemented correctly and in a sustained way-- have
successfully improved school climate and safety, classroom management and
engagement, and students' prosocial and academic outcomes.

These approaches also
have been used--over the past decade--with the Arkansas Department of Education
through its State Improvement/Personnel Development Grant (SIG/SPDG) with
significantly positive results relative to positive school climate, student
classroom engagement, disproportionate office discipline referrals and school
suspensions, and academic achievement.

To help you
understand these evidence-based approaches, we hope you will download the FREE
Positive Behavioral Support System Implementation Guidebook that is available
to you.

As always, if you would like a
free, one-hour telephone conference call to ask questions about implementing
this document or process, please feel free to e-mail
me:

knoffprojectachieve@earthlink.net

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

I hope that you will
download and read the new School Crime and Safety Report, and I invite you to
look at the Project ACHIEVE resources above as you look to make your school and
district safer this coming year.

Well. . . I'm off to
look at this next school safety grant. Best wishes for a successful,
safe, and productive June.

Sunday, June 8, 2014

New Report Discusses Ways to Improve
School Learning Conditions for Students and Staff. . . and How to
Break the "School to Prison" Link for Behaviorally
Challenging Students

Dear Colleagues,

I hope
you have been well during the past three weeks, and that (for most of you) the
end of the school year has gone smoothly. As for me, I spent three days
in San Francisco last month--presenting to over 400 participants at a three-day
conference focusing on school discipline and how to handle behaviorally
challenging students.

I also
just completed a brief for a due process case involving parents' right to get
an Independent Educational Evaluation at public expense, and have been on-site
consulting with a number of schools that had significantly high number of
office discipline referrals this past year, and want a better way to keep
students in class, positively engaged, and academically successful.

And so,
our topic/announcement for the day. . .

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Today's Focus-- A New
National Report on School Discipline Just Announced

This
week, the Council of State Governments' Justice Center released a new report, The
School Discipline Consensus Report: Strategies from the Field to Keep
Students Engaged in School and Out of the Juvenile Justice System.

This
report presents "a comprehensive set of consensus-based and field-driven
recommendations to improve conditions for learning for all students and
educators, better support students with behavioral needs, improve
police-schools partnerships, and keep students out of the juvenile justice
system for minor offenses." The Report identifies over two dozen
policy and 60 school-based recommendations to help keep more students in
productive classrooms and out of court rooms.

These
policies and recommendations are organized in six sections:

*
Conditions for Learning

*
Targeted Behavioral Interventions

*
School-Police Partnerships

*
Courts and Juvenile Justice

*
Information Sharing

*
Data Collection

Throughout the Report, it is emphasized that:

Reactive, punishment-oriented, and
zero tolerance programs do not work;

What schools are doing in the areas
of school discipline, classroom management, and student self-management
also is not working; and

We need to rethink our approach to
"school discipline" using more proactive, field-tested, and
outcome-based approaches.

Significantly, Project ACHIEVE and the importance of positive behavioral
support systems are referenced in the Report. I know that this Report is
one that every educator should review and consider--especially relative to ways
to put its various recommendations into practice.

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_

Considering Project ACHIEVE as
your School Discipline/Positive Behavioral Support Model

Project
ACHIEVE remains the only national, evidence-based school improvement
model that has both PBIS and multi-tiered Response-to-Intervention
components. Relative to school discipline, behavior management, and
student self-management, we focus heavily on prevention and early intervention
in order to minimize the need for suspensions, expulsions, alternative school
placements, and juvenile justice involvement.

In order
to shift toward prevention and intervention, districts and schools need
to:

*
Focus on teaching and reinforcing students' interpersonal, social problem
solving, conflict prevention and resolution, and emotional coping skills from
preschool through high school.

*
Do this by implementing a systematic "Health, Mental Health, and
Wellness" curriculum (to complement your literacy, math, science, and
other curricula).

*
"Job embed" the skills above into the classroom and academic
program-- teaching and reinforcing students for interacting successfully (a) on
an individual level, (b) in cooperative and other instructional groups and lab
experiences, and (c) within their classrooms, at their grade levels, and across
the school.

*
Create a continuum of services, supports, strategies, and/or programs for
students (with disabilities, mental health issues, or who are just emotionally
or behaviorally struggling) that are implemented through an effective Student
Assistance Team process.

*
Plan, implement, and evaluate these approaches every year as part of the
school and district's strategic planning and School Improvement Plan processes.

For
almost 30 years and across the country, we have been helping schools and
districts with approaches that-- when implemented correctly and in a sustained
way-- have successfully improved school climate and safety, classroom
management and engagement, and students' prosocial and academic outcomes.

These
approaches also have been used--over the past decade--with the Arkansas
Department of Education through its State Improvement/Personnel Development
Grant (SIG/SPDG) with significantly positive results relative to positive
school climate, student classroom engagement, disproportionate office
discipline referrals and school suspensions, and academic achievement.

To help you understand these evidence-based approaches, we hope you will
download the FREE Positive Behavioral Support System Implementation Guidebook
that is available to you.

The Components of an Effective
Positive Behavioral Support System (PBSS)

A Step-by-Step PBSS Implementation
Blueprint

Professional Development Approaches
and Resources

Evaluation and Outcomes

Appendices

_ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _

I hope that you will download and read the new School Discipline Consensus
Report, and I invite you to look at the Project ACHIEVE PBSS resource above
as one way to implement many of recommendations in the Report.

Meanwhile for those of you who just finished your
school year, have a great break. For those of you still working (in
whatever capacity), I hope that you are successful, safe, and productive.

Connecting with Howie

Follow by Email

About Me

Howard M. Knoff, Ph.D. is the creator and Director of Project ACHIEVE.After 22 years as a university professor and over 12 years as a federal grant director for a state department of education, he continues his national work as a full-time national consultant, author, and presenter.

Dr. Knoff is recognized nationwide as an expert in the following areas:

·School Improvement and
Turn-Around, Strategic Planning and Organizational Development

·Differentiated Academic
Instruction and Academic Interventions for Struggling Students

·Social, Emotional, and
Behavioral Instruction and Strategic and Intensive Interventions for Challenging
Students

·Multi-tiered (RtI)
Services, Supports, and Program

·Effective Professional
Development and On-Site Consultation and Technical Assistance

From 2003 through 2015, he was the Director of the federally-funded State Improvement Grant (SIG; 2003-2009) which then became the State Personnel Development Grant (SPDG; 2009-2015) for the Arkansas Department of Education (ADE). These grants funded the state-wide scale-up of Project ACHIEVE--especially its school improvement, positive behavioral support, and multi-tiered RtI service system components. Through the ADE's Elementary and Secondary Education Act flexibility process, Project ACHIEVE was the state's school improvement model for all Focus schools.

Prior to that, Dr. Knoff was a Professor of School Psychology at the University of South Florida (USF, Tampa, FL) for 18 years, and Director of its School Psychology Program for 12 years. He also was the creator and Director of the Institute for School Reform, Integrated Services, and Child Mental Health and Educational Policy at USF, and was instrumental in leading the program to the accreditation of its doctoral program by the American Psychological Association.

Project ACHIEVE is a nationally-recognized school
effectiveness/school improvement program that has been designated a National
Model Prevention Program by the U. S. Department of Health & Human
Service’s Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration
(SAMHSA).Over the past 30 years, Howie
has implemented Project ACHIEVE components in thousands of schools or school
districts—training in every state in the country.He has also been awarded over $21 million in
federal, state, or foundation grants for this work, and recently received two
School Climate Transformation grants and one Elementary and Secondary
Counseling grant from the federal government to support work in Pennsylvania,
Michigan, and Kentucky.

Dr. Knoff received his Ph.D. degree from
Syracuse University in 1980, and has worked as a practitioner, consultant,
licensed private psychologist, and university professor since 1978.Dr. Knoff is widely respected for his
research and writing on school reform and organizational change, consultation
and intervention processes, social skills and behavior management training,
Response-to-Intervention, and professional issues.

He has authored or co-authored 18 books,
published over 100 articles and book chapters, and delivered over 1,000 papers
and workshops nationally—including the Stop & Think Social Skills
Program (preschool through middle school editions) and the Stop &
Think Parent Book:A Guide to Children’s
Good Behavior through Cambium Learning/Sopris West Publishers and Project
ACHIEVE Press, respectively.

Dr. Knoff has a long history of working
with schools, districts, and community and state agencies and
organizations.For example, he has consulted with a number of state departments of
education, the Department of Defense Dependents School District during Desert
Storm in 1991, and the Southern Poverty Law Center.He has also served as an expert witness in
federal court five times, in addition to working on many other state and local
cases—largely for legal advocacy firms who are representing special education
and other students in need.

Specific to
school safety issues, Dr. Knoff was on the writing team that helped produce Early
Warning, Timely Response:A Guide to
Safe Schools, the document commissioned by President Clinton that was sent
to every school in the country in the Fall of 1998; and he participated in a
review capacity on the follow-up document, Safeguarding our Children: An
Action Guide.

A recipient of the Lightner Witmer Award
from the American Psychological Association's School Psychology Division for
early career contributions in 1990, and over $21 million in external grants
during his career, Dr. Knoff is a Fellow
of the American Psychological Association (School Psychology Division), a Nationally
Certified School Psychologist, a Licensed Psychologist in Arkansas, and he has
been trained in both crisis intervention and mediation processes.Frequently
interviewed in all areas of the media, Dr. Knoff has been on the NBC Nightly
News, numerous television and radio talk shows, and he was highlighted on an
ABC News' 20/20 program on "Being Teased, Taunted, and
Bullied."

Finally, Dr. Knoff was the 21st President of the National Association of
School Psychologists which now represents more than 25,000 school psychologists
nationwide. He is constantly sought after for his expertise in a wide variety of school,
psychological, and other professional issues. You can e-mail him at: knoffprojectachieve@earthlink.net